Author is no master of disaster

A Disastrous History of the World. By John Withington, Piatkus, €27

John Withington hasn’t called on just the four Horsemen of the Apocalypse for this compendium of the world’s disasters, but rather the whole calamitous cavalry.

Here, he attempts to compile a definitive list of the most unfortunate events that have befallen mankind, from the ‘‘dawn of man to the present day’’.

A Disastrous History of the World is written for the cataclysmic ...